


David Mack Makes A Mistake

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf), gandalfspace



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US)
Genre: 2020 US Presidential Election, M/M, Twitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27433303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gandalfspace/pseuds/gandalfspace
Summary: How was he supposed to know that tweeting "When will my husband, Steve Kornacki, return from war?" would cause people to actually believe he was married to Steve Kornacki?
Relationships: Steve Kornacki/David Mack
Comments: 18
Kudos: 34





	David Mack Makes A Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> yes i know the work skin is text messages, i didn't have time to twitter-fy it, I'll fix it later. Also maybe I will add timestamps, but once again, I cannot be bothered right this second. Also I don't know anything about David Mack (or, lbr, Steve Kornacki) so I just gave him a lot of strine. I love excuses to put strine in fics. (Does he even have a brother? I refuse to find out.) Many thanks to the politics chat for all the help you gave me with this and it's been a blast to be on this wild ride with you. <3 I love you all!!!
> 
> Also, in case you haven't seen the tweet this is based on: [When will my husband, Steve Kornacki, return from war?](https://twitter.com/davidmackau/status/1324163762144903168)

The tweet was a joke. Everyone on twitter was thirsting after Steve Kornacki, the only light in this wild election, a 72-hour fever dream where everyone was clutching for something to comfort them, a rock that stopped the tide from sweeping them away. And Steve Kornacki, the MSNBC number-cruncher who seemed to literally never sleep, was in the perfect position to be that rock: he was cute, always excited, wearing adorable glasses and what seemed to be exactly the same slacks, and never misled them or fed the batshit rumours going around twitter and Fox News.

The tweet, he would insist to anyone who would listen, was a _joke_. Everyone was making them! He’d seen so many tiktoks about people finding him hot! (No one seemed to have broken the news to the Gen Z girls that he was gay, but at this point, nothing mattered anymore. Destiel was canon, Putin was resigning, Joe Biden was a hologram. They were all going to wake up from this godforsaken K-hole on the 13th of November with hazy memories of what had gone down and there’d still be votes coming in from Nevada.)

Kornacki was on a break, which David was pretty sure involved multiple MSNBC staffers physically tackling him before locking him in a room with a bed and a selection from craft services they’d lovingly handpicked for him. David’s friend from MSNBC (the layoffs at Buzzfeed had been rough but at least she’d found another job) had messaged him to say there was a collection going around to give Steve a voucher for a spa after all this was done, and David was pretty sure if they created a GoFundMe the entire nation would contribute.

Anyway, the point was that Steve Kornacki had been away from his magic board for multiple hours and David was joking.

Then the DMs started coming in. He really hadn’t expected some fucked version of Poe’s Law to happen to him, but maybe he should have seen it coming, given the wild ride they were all currently strapped into. He tweeted again, leaning into it because why the fuck not. They were all rooted at this point, waiting for someone to call it and then for the riots to start because they lived in an utterly munted “democracy” where the right-wing was trying to stop votes getting counted. 

When he started seeing the articles he knew it was a mistake.

The only silver lining here was that at least they weren’t claiming Steve had a wife, which would be pretty fucked after that extremely heartfelt Salon article. (Had David cried while reading it? He would never tell.) 

Thankfully (?) articles began to change their tune, claiming that David had trolled twitter, which wasn’t true but he was willing for his reputation as a journalist to take a hit because nothing was real, time was a flat circle and he was pretty sure that Steve did not have time to check twitter.

Although he had made that video where he was adorably rumpled saying that he’d seen all the nice messages… 

Everyone in the country (and, from the way his Whatsapp was blowing up, a lot of people outside the US, too) was glued to their computers, phones and televisions until Georgia was finally called for Biden, at which point they all calmed down about 10% because Biden had crossed the line and the way things were going Trump’s cases were getting thrown out of court faster than he could file him. They were free. Covid was still killing over a thousand people a day, but they were free of the election uncertainty, and they had to take what they could get.

It wasn’t until the 10th that Kornacki messaged him. Presumably he had slept for 24 hours straight, as he deserved, and then spent another 24 hours going through his twitter mentions for some reason. David hoped he had some kind of intern for that, because David’s twitter was almost unusable and he wasn’t even using his personal twitter to report breaking news on the election. 

His traitorous brain said “can’t believe Steve Kornacki is sliding into our DMs” which was not a helpful thought at all.

Steve Kornacki  
  
I hear you’re my husband now?  
  
I’m so sorry about that, it was a joke - you were having a well-deserved nap and everyone on twitter was already talking about how you were the entire nation’s crush. I have no idea how people took it seriously.  
  
Haha it’s alright! I didn’t find out until yesterday, but I laughed a lot at the wikipedia article edit.  
  
I must admit, I’ve had multiple proposals, so I’m pretty spoiled for choice.   
  
You were the only thing keeping the country sane, I think. Well, I don’t think any of us were sane, but you were the thing that stopped us completely drowning.  
  
At least I had full use of two hands this time! It was terrible timing to have only one and a half for the midterms, and even with the brace my doctor was angry with me and made me keep it on for an extra two weeks.  
  
Someone posted the iconic video of you having paper in your mouth and interrupting Kasie Hunt and I have to admit, it was adorable.  


Steve didn’t reply immediately like he had to all the other messages, and the read receipt said he’d definitely seen it. Fuck. David couldn’t believe he’d blown it by flirting with Steve Kornacki. Imagine being able to tell all his mates that he was friends with Steve! Sure, it would only be a very specific circle of people who’d be impressed, but it would be hilarious. He was pretty sure his brother would cack himself, for one.

Half an hour, his phone pinged and he expected some twitter notification about one of his tweets getting liked or something, but it was Steve.

Steve Kornacki  
  
I don’t remember that part, but I was probably running only on caffeine and adrenaline at that point, so that probably happened. Ali kept dragging me off to sleep but I couldn’t when I knew there were numbers coming in.  
  
MSNBC people kept joking about how you had court-mandated rest periods. There was a very memorable tweet with Elmo snorting coke about you.  
  


It was like he was incapable of sending normal, non-weird messages to Steve. Why was he like this? The election had finally broken him. He may as well face God and walk backwards into hell.

Steve Kornacki  
  
I can assure you I did not partake of any illegal substances, but a similar joke was going around the news room.  
  
If you need some, I’m sure I know a guy who knows a guy.  
  
Considering the pandemic, it may not be the best time to talk to a guy who knows a guy. I’ll keep it in mind though, who knows what will happen between now and January 20.  
  


He was joking, right? Steve Kornacki was definitely joking about trying cocaine. At least, until Kornacki actually confirmed it, David would continue believing it.

Steve Kornacki  
  
If you’re desperate for more election stats after this I can’t stop laughing at this tweet: <https://twitter.com/jrhennessy/status/1323740923776262144>  
  
...Give me 24 hours, I need to find out how your preferential voting works. Also what your political parties are. I’m very excited about how your preferential votes affect the numbers, running them in Maine is thrilling.  
  


David had to put his phone down and put his face in his hands at the last message. Imagine running the numbers for preferential voting and finding them “thrilling”! Steve Kornacki was the cutest person he had ever spoken to, and he was absolutely doomed. After the rebuff he’d got after the first attempt at flirting, he couldn’t try again, but that didn’t stop the crush, apparently. Well, at least it wasn’t a straight guy. That had to count for something, right?

Exactly 24 hours later, Steve Kornacki messaged him again.

Steve Kornacki  
  
I cannot believe Ricky Muir got into your senate with 0.51% of the primary vote. I can see why they changed the rules to avoid that.  
  
Man, you really are getting into auspol. Have you reached the bit where Gladys Berejiklian threatened to take all the Nats out of the NSW cabinet if John Barilaro sat on the crossbench? And it’s all over koalas?  
  
Oh my god. This is the problem with the US not covering overseas politics, glorious stories like these. We only have politicians blatantly lying to us on camera and then swearing they never did it.  
  
Maybe you could tell me more about Australian politics over drinks?   
  
Well, it’s probably not a good idea to go to a bar right now, but I guess... Hmm, no, don’t really want to get arrested for an open container. Look, this was supposed to be smooth but I guess the coronavirus ruined that.  
  


Holy… shit? Holy shit. David wasn’t sure if this was as buddies after the first message, but the second — well, that sure as hell looked like Steve Kornacki, the statistician twitter had declared an absolute snack, was asking him out.

Steve Kornacki  
  
You could come to mine? I’ve got a balcony and a bottle of wine.  
  
It’s a date. :)  
  



End file.
